POETRY
When Cars Were America By Ed Ruzicka
Granny got a Caddie. Got a hold of gold keys given by her doctor son one Christmas.
#LANorthshore
CELEBRATE IN ST. TAMMANY Parades may be canceled, but the fun doesn’t stop in St. Tammany Parish. Find a plethora of king cake renditions, family-friendly activities, and specialty shops to keep you in the Mardi Gras spirit.
Now -2/17
Rollin’ on the 3 Rivers House Floats Parade
Now – 2/20
Krewe du Pooch Fun Walk/ Run Costume Contest, Virtual
Now – 2/20
Mardi Paws presents a Month of Mutty Gras
2/13
Corks & Cooking Valentine’s Dinner
2/13
Pelican Park’s Mutts & Milkshakes
2/7 & 2/14
Abita Springs Market Gras
Sat. & Sun., 2/13 – 2/27
The Glass Menagerie by Playmakers Community Theater
Fri. & Sat., 2/26 – 3/13
Grease the Musical by Cutting Edge Theater
Fri. - Sun., 2/26 – 3/14
Brighton Beach Memoirs by 30 x Ninety Theatre
800-634-9443 • LouisianaNorthshore.com/MardiGras
She said, “Pile in my polliwog. Pile in the back seat.” She’d fly off to Seven-Eleven for Icees after pre-school. Big air-puffed Coke, strawberry Coke, you suck down with a fat straw. Gives you shivers in your throat-back in the deep comfort of “Grannys” Cadillac. Blue as the big, blue sea, Granny’s Caddie whizzed along the fast lanes. It had photosensitivity too; a bitty-chip that shut the lights down. Shut the lights down when stubby-as-a-gremlin Granny didn’t remember to do that thing. How she grinned to tell her cousins that the M.D. son gave his mum her big, blue Caddie Christmas. Knew she knew they knew she’s the very one that made it. Became the apple in the family pie. Then went zoom-zoom on and on. —From My Life in Cars, a collection of poetry on the cultural seat of the automobile in America, written by Baton Rouge writer Ed Ruzicka and published in November 2020 by Truth Serum Press. Available at truthserumpress.net and at Cottonwood Books. Read more of Ruzicka’s poetry at edrpoet.com/poems. Photo by Charles deGravelles.
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